


Crystal Clear

by cassowarykisses



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassowarykisses/pseuds/cassowarykisses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Swerve and Tailgate try their hand at making a courtship present for Rewind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crystal Clear

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a birthday gift for swindleofficial on tumblr.

Swerve’s bar was empty at this time of day, between the main shift changes. But since Tailgate was mostly regulated to doing odd jobs, and he had mostly retired from being a metallurgist to try out the hospitality sector as a career. Well, he had retired until the next interesting substance crossed the Lost Light’s path, but currently the most interesting thing was sitting on his counter in a large tray that Tailgate had made a valiant attempt at painting decoratively.

“You’re sure this is how it works?” Swerve asked. “I mean, are you _sure_  sure. Because I everyone knows the basic process of growing crystal flowers, but it’s apparently harder than it looks. I knew this one mech once before the war who was trying to grow them and accidentally wound up cultivating them on his plating instead of in the dish.” He frowned and checked his hands. Still clean. “He was covered in little spots of missing paint for weeks, so I’m thinking he should have kept them. They were really pretty.”

“Of course I’m sure!” Tailgate said, leaning in to put his visor as close as he could to the shimmering crystals. They were growing up out of their mixture of energon and minerals at a startling rate.  _How cool_ , he thought. “Anyways, you only get them to grow on you if you really rub your hands in them.”

“I’m still not totally –“ Swerve started, then trailed off in mid-sentence. “Ooooh,”he breathed as one of the crystals split apart into a particularly complex fractal pattern. He stared for a moment as it grew, then poked Tailgate in the shoulder next to his wheel.

Tailgate swatted his hand. “Ow!” He rubbed the spot where his wheel met his chassis and threw was presumably a sullen look at him. “What was that for?”

Swerve looked a little cross . “How much energon will this thing take up?” he asked, pointing at the crystals. “They’ve taken up almost three bottles fit for an Ultra Magnus and –“

“But Swerve!” Tailgate cried, throwing his arms wide. His left arm nearly made contact with the crystals, and Swerve grabbed it, pulling him towards him and almost out of his seat. “Wait, let me go!” Tailgate said, and tugged his arm free by a combination of strength and repeated kicks aimed in the general direction of Swerve’s knees.

When he got free, he folded his arms across his chest. “These crystals are for Rewind,” he explained, in the tone of one who’d said it many times before. “They were very important as a gift for courting mechs back in my day, but Drift is the only other bot onboard who’s grown them. So I thought they would make a great gift for him, since he knows all the history behind them!”

Swerve looked uncertain. “Did you even ask Drift about how to grow these things?” he asked, waving a hand in the direction of the crystals.

“No … “ Tailgate said. “I, uh, actually just asked Ratchet if I could some and he gave me some of the fragments that fell off one of Drift’s larger ones. He said they ‘annoyingly glowy’.“ He made air quotes around  the words. “But all the maintenance mechs had some back in my day, because they were easy to make and way prettier than anything else down there.” He paused and looked at the floor. “Wonder what happened to mine.”

Swerve patted him on the back comfortingly. “I’m sure someone took care of them for you.” He glanced at the crystals again. “It’s just that at the rate it’s going, it’s going to eat up at least half of my really good highgrade.”

“But it’s for Rewind,” Tailgate insisted, leaning in close to Swerve’s face. “He’s worth more than business to you, right?”

“Obviously!” Swerve said, relenting. “ They do look pretty great. Just the thing to remind him of Towers life with his old buddy Dominus, right? Not that Rewind really needs much reminding…”

“But this is different from another old video,” Tailgate said, shaking his head. “I bet he hasn’t had crystals of his own for ages.”

Alright, alright, I’ll go get the extra good stuff from Trailcutter’s room.” He turned and hurried towards the exit.

“Yes!” Tailgate cheered, pumping one fist into the air. “I heard from Drift that switching minerals or energon midway through makes them change color – we should add a little of everything, to make them extra special.” He hopped up from his seat and looked up across the bar at the wide variety of energons.

There was a patter of footsteps, and Swerve poked his head around the doorframe. “Don’t you  _dare_ , Tailgate,” he said.

“It would make them look cool,” Tailgate protested, grabbing a likely-looking bottle. He glanced at the label. ‘Axe Crazy’.  _Sounds good_ , he thought.  _Maybe they’ll grow extra spikes if I give them this_.

“No, it would look horrible!” Swerve said, pointing a finger at the bottle Tailgate  was holding. “And that’s got extra additives from normal energon so we don’t know what’ll do if we add it in.”

Tailgate examined the bottle. “You mean, like, maybe they won’t stop growing?”

Swerve froze, a horrified expression on his face. “That could happen?”

“I have no idea,” Tailgate said, shrugging. “But we should try it!” He waved the bottle in the air.

“No!” Swerve said, rushing back into the room, all thoughts of Trailcutter’s hoard forgotten. “Tailgate, don’t do that!”

“It would be cheaper than calling Atomizer in to redecorate,” Tailgate pointed out, backing up against the bar and holding the bottle as far from Swerve as he could.

“I don’t care,” Swerve said, pressing himself against Tailgate in an attempt to regain his specialty energon. When that failed, he stretched his arms as far as they would go, but Tailgate was just that strategic bit longer-armed and more flexible. “I want to keep my bar crystal-free! Anyway, these are for Rewind, you said so yourself!”

Tailgate sighed. “You’re right.” He drooped, still half-pinned against the counter. “Maybe we could grow some more later, and try out the weird stuff on them?”

Swerve grinned and took the bottle from Tailgate’s hands, now that his experiments were postponed. “Yeah, we need to make sure this batch is nice.” The crystals had now mostly absorbed the energon in the tray and the growth of their fractal pattern had slowed to a crawl. There was a crackling noise as the branches settled.

“That doesn’t really look much like a flower,” Tailgate said after a pause.

Swerve pressed himself against Tailgate again to peer over his shoulder. “Do you think he’ll still like them?”

“Like what?”  Rewind said, poking his helm through the door into the bar. He stopped, and Tailgate could tell he was staring underneath his visor. “ _What_  are you two doing?”

Tailgate kicked at Swerve’s lower legs, making him slip and faceplant on the floor next to his feet. “Uh, nothing!”

“Really,” Rewind teased.  “And you were clinging to each other  on top of the bar for nothing?”

“We weren’t on top of the bar,” Tailgate pointed out. “Neither of us has long enough legs to climb up there.”

Rewind laughed. “You could have used a stool.”

“Well, we weren’t as clever as you,” Swerve said, pushing himself up from the floor.

“Hey, I’ve had to hone my climbing skills to get half of my archive filmed  _and_  to get around,” Rewind said, walking over to give Swerve a hand up. “I wouldn’t expect you wheeled types to understand.”

Rewind turned to face them, carefully avoiding looking at the openly glowing tray of crystals. “Now, what were you really up to, if you weren’t having some public fun?”

Tailgate sputtered. “We weren’t – “

Swerve interrupted. “We were making a present for you,” He reached out and turned Rewind’s helm towards the crystals.

Rewind gasped in exaggerated surprise. “Those? For me?” He hopped up on one of the bar stools to get a better look. After a moment, he turned back to Tailgate and Swerve. “Thank you,” he said, and both Tailgate and Swerve could feel the overjoyed tone in his voice. “I knew Drift had some, but I didn’t know him well enough to ask. These ones are the same color as the ones in the main garden in the Ambus estate.”

“Really?” Tailgate said, visor flashing with surprise. “So they’re not … deformed, or something?”

“Nope!” Rewind said, leaning against the counter. “You can carve them into different shapes, but natural ones mostly look like these,” he nodded towards the tray. “Of course, some of the Ambus ones were larger,” he said, “but I don’t think Magnus would let us keep an engine-room sized crystal onboard. And they had a lot of indoor personal crystals too.”

“If you want it larger, we could try the Axe Crazy,” Swerve offered, gesturing at the bottle he had in one hand.

Rewind glanced at it. “Oh yes,” he said, sounding like he was grinning. “That would be  _so cool_.”

Swerve looked at the bottle, and then up to Rewind. “Do you have any idea what it will do?”

“Nope!” Rewind said. He tapped his camera. “Think of it as adding to the historical record.”

“I’m not cleaning this up if these things start growing on my bar,” Swerve warned him, going around behind the bar to grab a vial to pour the energon in.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” Tailgate said, visor brightening. “It’ll be worth it just to see what happens!”

Rewind pointed at him. “Make sure to leave some of the pretty clusters behind – this bar could use some decoration.”

“It  _would_  be cheap,” Swerve said.

“And attractively Cybertronian,” Tailgate added. “And not in the half-destroyed war of everything back on Cybertron.”

“Hey, I could show you my recordings of all the old crystal gardens I’ve seen,” Rewind said, moving to sit on the counter facing Tailgate.

“Really?” Tailgate asked. “I’ve only seen people’s tiny low-grade based gardens.”

“Of course,” Rewind said. “We can do science and watch my archive. I think I have a couple of actual films that were shot on their estate, so we can try out historical dramas.”

“Hey, maybe I’ll actually know what’s going on in those, if they were historical in your day,” Tailgate said.

“We can educate you entirely through the mass media, Tailgate!” Swerve said, holding up his tiny cup of energon. “And, of course, through hands-on learning.” He poured the Axe Crazy into the tray, and the crystals hissed.

“… That sounds a little dangerous,” Tailgate said, watching as they regained their rapid rate of growth. The crystals were taking on a greenish tint near the bottom, which led to an interesting gradient up towards the pink of their tips.

“No, that sounds cool,” Rewind said, his words underlain by the sound of the crystals. He glanced at Swerve and Tailgate on each side of the counter from his seat on top of it. “If you two want to get back to struggling together, I could film that too,”

Tailgate started, his visor flaring light. “Wh-what?”

“I might be able to get behind this,” Swerve said.

Rewind laughed. “Hey, while we’re doing one experiment, we might as well do another!” He grabbed Tailgate’s hand to pull him up on the counter, while Swerve darted around to the closest bar stool.

Forgotten, the crystals grew on in their mix of bubbling energon.


End file.
